Tears in Icy Water
by Omniskriba
Summary: After four years of recluse, Jyou finally steps out to reclaim his life. One problem persists, though... he is slowly dying. Can the digidestined pinpoint the problem before it's too late? And can they find a solution?
1. Recluse Finale

~*~  
Tears in Icy Water  
~*~  
By Kyoko_Jyou  
~*~  
Warning: This Fanfic has been written with lemon intentions in mind.   
While I'm placing the first few chapters on the fairly tame PG rating, the   
succeeding chapters would systematically be more and more... shall we   
say... dramatic in many ways. Whether this fanfic may or may not end up as a lemon, it would be up to the readers. Or, I suppose I could separate the lemon from the story and give it a separate link and rating so it's win-win! DR. KJ STRIKES AGAIN!!!  
Author's Note: Not a sequel to Better Night! Not a sequel to Better Night!   
Thank You.  
~*~  
Dissed-claimer... ehrm... Disclaimer. Due to the same International   
Conspiracy covering up the full scale Neptunian Brain Parasite Invasion   
going on in this planet at this very moment, I do not own Digimon:   
Digital Monsters or anything resembling the aforementioned merchandising mogul by name, appearance, hand feel, taste, or value in Disney Dollars.  
~*~  
Chapter One: The Recluse Finale  
~*~  
Jyou.  
He was but a sickly, frail boy when I met him. Horn rim glasses, asthma, v-neck sweaters, a nasal voice... he was the Nerd Kami incarnate for all anybody cared.  
Nobody did, really.  
Cared about him, I mean. Ever since Grade School, he'd always been the smart-alecky know-it-all everybody avoided, and who could blame them?   
He'd fret about everything from a paper cut to the possibility of the moon falling. He was two years ahead of our class, although we had guys bullying him around.  
That was almost ten years ago.  
Things Change.  
-Mimi Tachikawa  
~*~  
Jyou sat silently at his desk, looking at the old pictures of the   
Digidestined he took a few years back. He sighed softly, barely audible even in the stillness and soundlessness of his apartment room. It's been almost four years since he had lost contact from all his friends, that fateful day when he entered Senior Highschool. Only a year before did he graduate from College after only taking the Medicine Course for a month. All throughout the preceeding years, Dr. Kido had forced him to take correspondence courses n Pre-Medical subjects, leaving him to slave for countless sleepless nights and several summerless years on projects in Human Anatomy and Advanced Pathology.  
His brain marred by an explosion of raw data, he prevailed in the ordeal, passing the Medical Bar Exam as the youngest doctor in Japan at the tender age of 18 years, seven months.  
Yet he admitted he could not face the career. Not now. Not yet. Finally free from his father's prison, he took a job at Odaiba General, quitting after a few months, over-fatigued. He now sulks heavily on his one-bedroom apartment, contemplating on either ending his life or making something out of it.  
He knew he had wasted his teen years locked up in the Kido attic, entombed in a wall of five-pound books which touched the ceiling.  
But the damage has been done, no question about that.  
He's grown weak and emotionally frail in his years of seclusion.  
He needed help... badly.  
He looked at the photograph closely. Those faces.  
I'm coming back, guys.  
~*~  
There he was on our front porch.  
Never thought it was him when I first laid my eyes on him.  
Only when he laid his on me did I utter his long ineffable name.  
"Jyou?"  
I couldn't believe it was him...  
Corpse thin and eyes deep in their sockets. He could have claimed death and we'd believe him. His navy blue hair was long and wiry, so was his five-o-clock shadow and the dense growth of hair visibly sticking out from his bony, veined arms. He was still tall, the tallest of the Digidestined with his 6'4 frame supporting what little is left of his body.  
Without a word, he embraced me tenderly with a strength so emotionally invoked, I was slightly crushed. A cold tear brushed his cheek, streaming down my shoulder.  
All I could do then and there was to stroke him back, whispering gently into his ears "Welcome back, Jyou..."  
-Koushiro Izumi  
~*~  
"Jyou, if there's anything I could get you..."  
"No thank you."  
"Anybody you'd like to see?"  
"No."  
"Anything at all?"  
Jyou only refused. He slumped restfully in Koushi's couch, watching a   
video of Taichi's soccer matches.  
Jyou and Koushiro had always been friends since they could remember, which was probably why Jyou chose Koushiro as his first stop. He looked at him carefully. How his old friend has grown in the years he had been away. Koushiro's no longer the short little red-head he used to tease playfully because of his height. It's sad how things change relentlessly over the years.  
He looked at the young man on his couch, half dead and half dying.  
He had always admired his mind, considering it as his intellectual   
equal, although he never considered to slave for it, as Jyou had to become the MD he was today. The poor fellow seemed anorexic, although there was still a fair amount of masculine meat in him.  
Koushiro had been thinking too much when he finally realized what had been happening to Jyou on the couch. He had passed out without him knowing, the last image which crossed his eyes was that of Mimi Tachikawa's who appeared on the screen a few minutes before.  
~*~  
I can't believe Koushiro could keep him from us.  
I bet he would have kept him longer if Jyou hadn't fainted in his apartment. Oh well, I guess this had to happen.  
Jyou.  
A man I thought I'd never meet again. I've always looked up to him for solace and sanity, never knowing that he'd nearly succumb to insanity himself.  
Was it five years ago when Jyou and I almost had our chance in... uh... nevermind.  
All I know is that something stopped him, and I was too afraid to seek out   
what it was that hindered his feelings. If I only knew that I could have spared him of this fate, I would have done what I wanted then.  
But when you said the feelings were dead, where should I have gone... what should I have done...  
If I could only have known...  
I'm so sorry, Jyou...  
I'm so... sorry...  
-Sora Takenouchi  
~*~  
To avoid Dr. Kido's intervention, Jyou was rushed to Tokyo General Hospital where the Digidestined met, each with a sentiment against Koushiro's silence. Jyou slept for days without waking, as everybody pitched in to foot the bill.  
"I've got the results of Jyou's biopsy."  
"What's it say?" Taichi asked, glumly.  
"It says Jyou's suffering from an accute overdose of Anatestosterenes."  
"In English, Koushiro."  
"He's been taking Anti-libidals"  
"Again... In plain English, Koushiro"  
"It seems that Jyou's been countering his sex-drive all this years with drugs."  
"No sex-drive, eh? No wonder he was able to learn anything in Highschool."  
"Uh-huh. His brain diverts the flow of testosterone away from itself, distributing it into the body. He won't act like an idiot even if you have a dozen bimbos striptease in front of him. I'd bet his father started this the moment Jyou reached puberty."  
"You mean he's never had a crush on anybody before?"  
"I guess. He did lose all his libido. I guess desire is out of the question."  
"That must suck so bad."  
"I guess it does."  
"So, is there a chance he'd survive this?"  
"Well, the doctors say he'd wake up soon, but this will get worse in time. We'll have to find a way to flush that drug out of his system."  
"How'd we do that..."  
"We'll have to give Jyou what he had to fight against all his teen life."  
"Good for him..."  
~*~  
Taichi told me about Jyou's problem.  
I doubt he could have found a better person to ask for help.  
Jyou and I used to hang out a lot. Y'know, he didn't look too bad before he went to Senior Highschool. We'd cruise for chicks, he'd tell me he didn't like to. I'd ask him if he was gay. He'd say no, we'd go on. He was kinda half-cocked about it, but he'd always get his girls in the end.   
I don't know, but I find his area of rivalry more pleasing than Taichi's.  
We'd go to gyms, we'd shop for clothes. Taichi had Koushiro for constant company, and I had Jyou.  
Hmm... I remember that first time he asked me for a make over. I said "Great, why not! I'll have you fixed up in no time." Why he wanted to get made over then was anybody's guess, but now Jyou needs me to get him back into shape all over again. I'm right here, bud.  
-Yamato Ishida  
~*~  
That's it for my first chapter. Please read and review.  
Special thanks to Ismini for Beta Reading! (Got me a beta reader during the FF.Net two-week shut off. 


	2. The Claiming of Jyou Kido

~*~  
Chapter Two: The Claiming of Jyou Kido  
~*~  
It took Jyou five whole days to snap out of his coma and two more days to finally leave Tokyo General. After heavy medical discussion, Koushiro and Ken succesfully convinced Jyou's Doctor to carry their little scheme, finally reaching the conclusion that the only way Jyou will survive the overdose is to flush out the anti-libidal substances from his brain with high amounts of testosterone. While injecting the hormone intravenously might worsen the clog by bursting the veins sustaining the hypothalamus, arousing the natural generation of testosterone may succesfully override the blockage.  
Of course, Jyou had no idea what was going on.  
Jyou was given to the care of the Ishidas for the moment, with Yamato happy that he's finally cooking for somebody else other than his father. With some financial help from the Tachikawas, Jyou's finally getting a chance to be made over after four years of seclusion... with some help from Taichi, Yama, Ken and Takeru's. Iori, Hikari and Miyako prepared the paperwork for a Child Abuse suit against Dr. Kido, Koushiro made preparations for his plan... while Sora and Mimi...   
Well...  
~*~  
So the old guy's back.  
Jyou, I mean.  
I always looked up to him as a brother of sorts, seemingly predictable since I've lost a brother myself. Actually, in some ways, I do see Osamu in him...  
Koushiro pulled me along when the Doctors were to show him the diagnosis. 'Anatosterene' was the first word I heard with any coherence. It made too much sense for me, seeing that Jyou would endager his life by taking sexual-antistimulants to achieve some goal someone else set for him.  
I had faith that he had learned his lesson, yet it was probably not enough for him to just learn it. His father still had too much control over him and Jyou respected him too much to disobey.  
I'd call him a fool and blame him for what he's done to himself...  
But really... I just don't want to lose another big brother...  
~*~  
The Odaiba Shopping Megacomplex was bursting with people when most of the digidestined guys came to do some shopping. Ken was lent Mr. Tachikawa Platinum Visa Card, who was a little wary of leaving it to Taichi.  
"So, where should we take you first... I know a good shirt shop beside the Flower Pot Depot."  
"Oh... I think they're having a jeans sale at the Pants Emporium"  
"Why don't we get his hair done where I get mine..." Tai suggested.  
"NOOO!" They all replied. Tai simply brushed their comment off.  
Half the entire day was wasted in finding a place to shop for Jyou's clothes, Jyou simply nodding in agreement with everything they suggested, knowing it was pointless to disagree when they know very well that you've been held back by four years in fashion.  
"Blue!"  
"Gray!"  
"BLUE!"  
"GRAY!"  
"BLUUUUEEEE!!!"  
"GRAAAAAAAY!!!"  
Takeru and Ken watched as Taichi and Yamato fought over the color of Ralph Lauren collar shirt which would fit Jyou better. Jyou, on the other hand, was rumaging on a Surplus Exchange box for a bunch of checkered V-necks.  
"Guh... come back here..." Ken pulled him out from the box.  
"I'm fine, really! I don't want to max out Mr. Tachikawa's card..."  
"I have a quota spending limit, Jyou. Mimi's dad has a one-day spend minimum for this card."  
"Sounds like Mimi's dad, alright" Takeru commented.  
"How about a leather jacket?"  
"Too Yuppie."  
"Bell Bottoms?"  
"Too Disco."  
"Texas Belt?"  
"We're Japanese, Taichi."  
"Platforms?"  
"How tall do you want Jyou to be?"  
"How about a cheap shirt that says 'Kiss Me, I'm Swedish'?"  
"I can find one thing wrong with that, Tai'. One: that suggestion came from your fat mouth."  
"Well, if you're so hot, why don't you find him something?"  
After two hours, thirteen minutes and probably half a million yen in credit, Yamato and company walked out with Jyou looking a little like a person again, plus several boxes of perfumes, hair gel, basketball shoes, gym training equipment, magazines, vitamins, and assorted unmentionables tai probably snuck in at the counter.  
"Guys... I really wasn't expecting this much stuff..."  
"Trust us. Mr. Tachikawa insisted, with an added incentive to hang us by our intestines if we didn't comply" Ken replied wryly.  
"So, I guess I can look for an apartment now, huh? And probably get a job at Tokyo Medical."  
"Oh no..." Taich interrupted. "We're not finished with you yet."  
"W...what do you mean?"  
"You'll see."  
Driving to Koushiro's house on taichi's beaten up Toyota, he was surprised to see that the redhead has prepared a manila paper presentation for him, scrolling down the moment Jyou entered the room.  
"Jyou, it's nice to see you looking human again."  
"Domou Arigatou... now will anybody tell me what is going on already?"  
"Patience, my friend."  
Yamato, Taichi, Ken, Takeru with the addition of Daisuke and Iori sat behind him while Koushiro began his discussion.  
"Okay, I shall be straight to the point. Jyou, knowing you're present state of... uh... whatever... we, the Male Digidestined have decided to convalesce you're so-called-life by reorienting you with modern society. We zapped out the nerd in you once and damn, we will do it again!"  
The other guys gave a slight applause to Koushi's little speech.  
"Uh-huh. I understand... and you are still freaking me out. How, pray tell oh wise and learned Koushiro, are you going to fix the rut I've fallen into?"  
"Easy. All we'd have to do is to restore whatever it was you were doing four years ago. We'll start where you left off."  
"Wait a sec... I happen to know what I've been doing at that time... and frankly, I'm not sure I can ever get there again."  
"What, you think you've reached you're prime at fifteen?"  
"Uh... come to think of it..."  
"C'mon, Jyou. We're you're friends. We've been saving each other's asses since Grade School. A little trust is all we ask."  
"Fine. But it's going to be an ordeal you're not going to enjoy..."  
"Jyou, anything for you."  
~*~  
Jyou.  
You confuse me.  
You're a coward when everybody seems to forge on bravely.  
But you always were the last man standing when worst comes to worst.  
You're never there when we fought together.  
But when we are alone, you are our only companion.  
Reliability. What does it mean, exactly?  
You're everything that you are needed to be.  
But nothing you've ever wanted to be.  
I can't get it, dammit!  
You could have easily gotten the Crest of Courage more than once.  
Or Friendship, Love, Knowledge Sincerity, Light, Hope or Kindness...  
But only when we needed you did Reliability empower you with anything at all.  
Any other time, when you yourself was in need, your Reliability was simply a question mark.  
We can't even tell you what's going on within you right now...  
Yes, Jyou... Anything for you.  
We can't let you go...  
We won't let you go...  
We'll be everything you need us to be...  
-Taichi Yagami  
~*~  
Please Read and Review! And it wouldn't hurt to be anybody's favourite author, too! (Oh, c'mon, A guy's gotta have dreams to, y'know!) 


	3. Contemplations of the Act

~*~  
Chapter Three: Contemplations of the Act  
~*~  
"I'm not really getting everything that's going on.  
Ever since Jyou came back to town, everybody's gotten a bit uptight lately.  
It's probably because he's dying, or something.  
Don't get me wrong, I'm as freaked out as the next guy...  
Jyou's, like, a digidestined semi-legend for us younger kids.  
But did I really have to end up teaching him Soccer... again?  
He was an okay player back then... I guess. I'd rather have him play basketball, though, but Takeru's already filled in to teach him that part.  
I'm not sure how this is going to help, it's probably another Koushiro Moment. Anyway, I hope he gets well.  
Jun's getting worried too... although why she should is anybody's guess.  
Daisuke Motomiya  
~*~  
Under Koushi's supervision, the digidestined formed an alliance in getting back Jyou's old life back... or else he'd loose the pathetic one he has right now.  
Yamato had placed him under a strict high-protein, high-fiber, high-calcium, high-carbo, low-cholesterol, low-fat kosher diet, maintaining Jyou's exercise regimen like a drunk Pixiemon.  
"C'mon, you've done weights twice as heavy as this!"  
"I haven't lost 75 pounds of muscle tissue back then either!"  
"We'll we'd better recover them 75 pounds! Now keep working on that bench press. The moment you get back into shape, we'll go back downtown and call the groupies. They've been missing you..."  
"The... groupies?"  
"Yeah. They've been asking when you'd be coming back. I told them you were in rehab."  
"Back... Groupies?"  
"Yeah, so I told them that..."  
"Gyeaaaah... SPLAG!"  
"Jyou?  
Jyou...  
Jyou!?  
...  
...  
...  
Ambulance!"  
Taichi's been around, calling up night clubs for table reservations. On other occasions, though, he was given the task of reorienting Jyou toward sexual education, smuggling and explaining the finer details of hard core hentai.  
"What is this?"  
"The Femoral Vein."  
"No! How about this?"  
"Pectoralis Major."  
"No! Moving on!"  
"Mylaric Tissue?"  
"Egad, when was the last time you saw a naked body?"  
"We were dissecting Cadavers. Why do you ask?"  
"Never mind..."  
Takeru had him playing Basketball again, and Daisuke worked the Soccer back into his system.  
Everything was monitored by Koushiro and Ken who oversaw the operation.  
"His hypothalamus will not take any more of this. We must flush it out now!"  
"Not yet... his testosterone levels are still replenishing."  
"How long shall we wait then."  
"Not too long... I guess..."  
"How about the... uh... you know."  
"I had Sora and Mimi find all the girls who've uh... done the thing with Jyou back when he did that... uh... thing, but they don't seem to be getting any names down."  
"You got Mimi and Sora looking for Jyou's old girlfriends?"  
"Uh... I'll get back to you on that one..."  
"Koushiro..."  
~*~  
I've said it once and I'll say it again. Human life is all about SEX.  
Sigmund Freud (how'd he get here?)  
~*~  
"Yes, Tanaka. Jyou's dead. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. No, we're not having a funeral. Who was the last person he did? How should I know? Certainly wasn't you, that's for sure. Thanks, bye-bye."  
Sora hung up the phone, smiling sinisterly. She crossed yet another name from Jyou's old 'Little Black Book'. "That's twenty down, thrirty-nine to go. Hmmm, Jyou and Yamato sure have been busy..."  
She looked at a random name... picking her next victim...  
It landed on "Tachikawa, Mimi"  
She shuddered...  
~*~  
"Yes Tanaka, Jyou has been deported. Dead? No, of course not. Oh Sora told you? Well, she's very mixed up right now. Where? Somewhere were Sex is banned. Where exactly? Uh... Vatican City. Thank you, bye..."  
Mimi hung up.  
"Sora... you sick bitch..."  
~*~  
The first time I saw him, I could see how much he had deteriorated through the years. I felt that part of me had deteriorated as well.  
A person who had so imparted part of himself into me...  
Now dies...  
And so shall the part of himself that has become a part of me...  
Jyou... Mentor.  
He'd taught me too much -too much for one person to take from another...  
He withers away...  
My soul withers away with him...  
I was too young to know my father before he died...  
So I searched for another...  
Now cruel fate takes him, and I am still too young.  
I want him to be there when I get to Junior High.  
There when I ask him how to shave, or drive, or heaven forbid court girls.  
There to settle my nerves before prom night.  
There if I ever get anxious about my height or my weight.  
I want him to be there when I get to College...  
To see what man he had made me...  
Maybe one day, I'll be able to see his eyes at eye level...  
I want you to live Jyou...  
Since part of you keeps me alive as well...  
Iori Hida  
~*~  
The Plot thickens.  
Oh, when will the fornication and lust come into the picture (already, it is starting to rear it's ugly head).  
Stay tuned for the continuing story... Tears in Icy Water...  
Please R n' R and Peace be with you! 


End file.
